Thought: Fantasy.

December 12, 2007 at 6:06 am · Filed under writing-general and tagged: ,

What separates the fantastical from the merely fictional? I was thinking about a comment that Ellen Kushner made when talking about her book Swordspoint. She said that went she wrote it she didn’t intend for it to be a fantasy novel, and that she wasn’t all that clear on why it was categorized as fantasy since there was no magic in it.

It took me some time to hit upon the answer to this. In fact, it wasn’t until my roommate and I started planning out a series of novels that, while they also didn’t contain any magic (nor did the world that they are set in), were clearly fantasy. It seems to me that there is this conception that for a book to be classified as a “fantasy novel” there has to be some sort of magical element in it.

I would like to propose that no, this is wrong.

Clearly if something does have magic in it, then it is fantasy. But not everything that doesn’t have that particular element to the story is simply going to be fictional. The dictionary in my computer (an application that is so incredibly useful) says, “the faculty or activity of imagining things, esp. things that are impossible or improbable.” Fantasy is something that takes place in a reality that is not our own. (It now becomes clear why Alternate Histories are thrown in with fantasy. Also, for the record, I will say that my computer’s dictionary also has this to say in the entry about fantasy: “a genre of imaginative fiction involving magic and adventure, esp. in a setting other than the real world.” As you might imagine, I don’t entirely agree, but I can’t change the thing.)

In my mind, the distinction is simple: “fantasy” is something that is set in a world that is imagined. It is in the very definition of the word “fantasy.” Fantasy is something that has to be imagined, because it simply is not real.

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Thought: World Fantasy Convention

November 3, 2007 at 5:28 pm · Filed under general and tagged:

So, I am at World Fantasy Convention 2007 and I would attempt to write something about it or talk about it or even give a summary of what I am doing at it, but I am too busy to write everything down and too excited to do it justice.

Suffice to say that I have met many of my favorite authors and decided that, yeah, I’m in the right business. There’s nothing else I would rather be doing with my time, or with my life.

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Thought: Marching Merrily On Backwards.

October 26, 2007 at 1:25 am · Filed under books, writing-general and tagged: , , ,

I’m reading the Branion series by Fiona Patton at the moment. The first book was on my shelf for several months, and I finally gave in. I needed something to read, and the 60-some odd books that I had (and still have) yet to read were sitting on my shelf glaring at me. I could just feel it. (I still can.) So, I picked up The Stone Prince.

It was lovely. That’s not the point of this post. Shortly before finishing the book, I went ahead and got my hands on the rest of the series. There were three other books, and though out of print (or simply widely unavailable), this is what abebooks.com is for. I finished the “first” book, and then started on the “second.”

The quotes are there because it took me all of two pages to realize that though The Painter Knight is supposed to be a sequel (it was written after The Stone Prince and I have always seen it called the sequel), it comes chronologically after the “first” book! And the “third” book comes chronologically before the “second.” Following along that concept, the “fourth” is even further back in Fiona Patton’s world’s history. (Understand that it took some fancy figuring to come to this conclusion, but what confirmed it was the list of kings (called Aristoks in this world) in the front of the “fourth” book.)

At first I was very confused, and a little bit annoyed. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to read what came before the book I had just enjoyed. I wanted to know what came next. Well, that passed. I mean, the writing of the second book (with no quotes to denote that it was written second) was just as good as the first, and I was perfectly happy with it as a book, just maybe not as a sequel.

But the more I thought about it, the more interesting it actually became, and the less annoyed I was about the prospects of reading these books. By the time the first books open there are some 800 years of history for this world that Fiona Patton has created. Which she obviously has a very clear picture of. And she manages to convey this in the book, I thought. There are mentions of previous Aristoks and how many of them there were, and wars that have been fought, and so on and so forth.

Now, this isn’t meant to be a review of the Branion series, after all, I’ve read one and only begun the next. What this post is about is the challenges that one must be faced with if one is going to write a series of books in a world that is rich with history, and one is going to make the books chronologically backwards to the order that one writes them. You would have to be very careful about how much information you divulged and be very careful to keep with your own continuity.

I’m thinking about this from the point of view of another writer and I am thinking of the sheer amount of information you would have to know about the world you were working with just to keep your own facts straight and prevent incontinuity. Frankly, it sounds like a lot of work and I would be somewhat impressed with someone who even tried. I would be very impressed if they succeeded.

That all said, I have no idea if Fiona Patton succeeds. I’m not far enough into the second book to make a call on that one. But I’m already a little impressed.

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Thought: Writer’s Block – An Epilogue.

October 11, 2007 at 6:39 pm · Filed under writing-general

A good friend of mine has recently decided that he is going to beat the Writer’s Block out of me. (I realize that sounds strange. Please stay with me, I promise that I will explain.) He sat me down, and told me that I was not allowed to leave until I had either been writing for a half an hour or written a whole page, whichever came later.

And I did it, however hard it might have been and however I might have felt about what I actually managed to write. (Granted, I think that there may have been one useable paragraph in the whole thing, but hey, I did it. I’m not really proud, but it’s done.)

I even, just the other day, signed up for The Yuletide Challenge in the hope that it will push me back on the trail. (I signed up for things that I think I will really enjoy and have fun writing if I get, and that I think will challenge me. I think that was a good move.)

So, by tooth or by nail I will get myself back on track. Because I love writing. And I can’t stand not doing it.

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Thought: Writer’s Block.

October 10, 2007 at 4:25 am · Filed under writing-general

I think I just need to bull through this. Seriously, how hard can it be to talk about Writer’s Block?

Here’s the deal: Until very recently (I might even say still, but that might just be semantics) I hadn’t written anything for about a year and a half. It was May 2006 that I wrote my last story. And then I just… hit a block. Who knows why. I don’t think it really matters.

Now, I know this happens to people. Sometimes a block can last a day. Maybe a week. Or a month. I’ve had that before. And I know that sometimes it can last years. (God forbid that should happen. *knocks on wood*) And I understand, from an intellectual standpoint, that something like this is bound to happen to everyone at some point. And honestly? I’m all right with that. I don’t terribly mind getting blocked, because I know it will break eventually. I love writing, it’s what I want to do, so I know that it can’t just go away forever. (Though, want some scary nightmares after ~9 months of Writer’s Block? The thought that I won’t ever write again is enough to make me cry.)

Some people say that it’s laziness. I don’t know that I believe that is the cause, but I think that definitely feeds into it. I will say that for me, it’s a complete lack of motivation and inspiration and creativity(-ation?). That pretty much explains exactly what Writer’s Block feels like to me. And, let me just say, it sucks. A lot. It’s like a big chunk of who I am simply isn’t there for me to call on anymore.

But, what drives me absolutely batty about having Writer’s Block is this: I genuinely LOVE writing. I love everything about it. I find joy and a sense of satisfaction from stringing the exact right words together in the exact right patterns to make beautiful sentences. I love making characters and being able to feel them in my head, clear as day. I love writing complicated plots, weaving the knots and the loops and the webs that my characters get into. I don’t think there’s a single thing about writing that I don’t enjoy (and that includes editing, no matter how much I might complain about it).

So not being able to do it? Really drives me bat-shit crazy. I understand that it might have to happen, and I can tolerate it, no matter how annoyed with it I may become, but I am still annoyed.

I want to go back to being able to do what I love doing. It is my hobby, my passion and, as it conveniently happens, my goal. I’d like to be able to do it again.

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